Okay, I have to say something to this.

Yeah, not everyone is society's idea of beautiful. But to SOMEONE SOMEWHERE you are beautiful.

Hey, look at me. My face has acne scars, I have to pluck stray chin hairs and I have a very noticable double chin and while I may HATE myself sometimes, there are times where I go HEY! I am pretty! And when I wear makeup, even the littlest bit, I'm BEAUTIFUL. Maybe just to myself, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Yeah, I'll have people think I'm dog ugly and call me fat and all that, but you know what. I'll lose the weight, they'll never stop being an arse.

It makes my day when someone compliments me, even on the littlest thing. To me, all women are beautiful. We are beautiful creatures no matter our size, shape, skin tone, flaws. It's in the flaws that we find beauty.

I used to look at pictures of me and all I saw was ROUND. My face was like a globe. I had no features, I had no neck and I had about ten chins. Even if I hate the way a picture turns out now, I still smile. Because I find happiness in my own beauty.

And that Angelou poem hangs on my wall. It's the best thing since sliced bread.

Visit Operationbeautiful.com its the most uplifting thing I've seen.

You are ALL beautiful in your own special way. In a way that NO ONE can take away from you and NO ONE else has.

Like my boyfriend tells me. "You could have two Medusa heads with polkadotted skin weighing 900 pounds and you would be beautiful to me." And when I feel my lowest, even like now where I can't wear makeup and I cant do much in the way of clothes cause of my sunburn, I make the most of it. I may think I look like a horrendous beast, but you know what? It's the way you carry yourself.

If you have confidence, even in its slightest, it makes a difference and people notice.

I think you are all beautiful no matter what. Both inside and out, and you can't convince me otherwise.

Thank you for this! And I agree.. everyone has beauty. I think I said something about this in another post. Wether its your eyes, the way your mouth is shaped, a laugh, the way you speak, the way you walk, your confidence... there are SO many things that can make a person beautiful. I don't consider my appearance "beautiful", but some people have called me that. But to my DH he thinks I am cute.. that is what he likes. He loves me for me.

Don't let anyone EVER make you feel less than you deserve to feel.


I am with you 100% on this Kaplods! I had the same situation...
Lovebirds - thank you for sharing that poem.. actually made me cry

To quote the great Late Eleanor. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

Best quote ever.

And exactly Fluffy. Eyes, lips, jaw.. something. My boyfriend loves my eyes and my lips the most (and my butt, but hey lol) everyone has SOMETHING that makes them stand out among the lemmings.

YES! I AM BEAUTIFUL! (And so are YOU! All of you!).

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day how I wished I could experience, just once even, being really physically beautiful (thin, with drop dead good looks). I'm a lot harder on myself than I am with other people. I find all kind of people to be attractive for all different reasons. Sometimes charisma and personality will totally trump any thought I have about a less appealing "look." At the same time, someone's personality can totally turn me off no matter what he or she looks like.

I sat outside of Macys (in NYC Herald's Square) today, drinking a cup of coffee and people watching. Very few passed by who didn't have some flaw. Lots of chunky, padded, lumpy people. Some well dressed, some sloppy, with good haircuts, with mops, nice makeup, au naturale. I think from watching tv, seeing movies, and magazines, that type of media, gets in my head that there's much more perfection to be seen in the world than actually exists.

Yes, and loving someone makes them very beautiful to my eyes.

When I had a benign tumor removed from my breast (we didn't know it was benign until after the surgery), I was very self-conscious about that breast. The scar didn't bother me, but the fact that my boob had a divet did. When I lay on my back, it looks like a volcano, with the nipple nestled in the crater. WEIRD, and very unbreastlike.

When I complained to hubby about it's odd appearance, he told me that it was his "favorite" breast because it reminds him every time he sees it, how lucky he is to still have me, because the tumor wasn't cancerous.

He sees beauty in that odd breast, and it took me a while, but now I see it too. I wouldn't trade the volcano boob in on a perfectly matched set, even if I could. That kind of beauty is very special, not only because it was earned at a great price, but also because it's a private beauty shared by only my husband and I.

Love creates beauty where others would see ugliness, because they don't know any better. Some cultures see scars as beautiful because they reflect the physical strength and courage of the bearer - it must be something a little bit like hubby and I see my breast scars - it reminds us of the strength we needed to call on during that really terrible period in our life (the mammogram that found the lump was taken just a couple days before our wedding).

(Smile.)

An elderly Filipina lady once told me that in her culture, the hardened, callused hands are called "beautiful" because of all the hard work it takes to get them into that condition. It's the smooth, lotioned, manicured hands that are considered "ugly" because it implies laziness or a lifetime of being pampered.

i have to tell my self this everyday looking in the mirror as big headed as that sounds let me just clarify.
I stand by the mirror in the morning and straight away a thousand faults are running through my head so everyday to drown them out i just tell my self that to someone somewhere you are beautiful...
Then he rolls over and wakes up and says it to

One of the sweetest things I have ever heard

To repeat: I am beautiful NOW. I don't have to wait until I lose X number of pounds before I can call myself beautiful, and I didn't stop being beautiful after a certain age.

All women (and men) of any age and size are beautiful somewhere.

For me, it's kinda hard to feel beautiful when the media's definition of beautiful isn't me lots of people are influenced by the media! i try not to let it influence me but it's everywhere! geez! i'm the heaviest amongst my friends and i think that they're all gorgeous... i feel like the odd one out i need to lose those "X number of pounds" to get to their 'level' (if i can call it that)

My opinion of my own beauty seems to change daily. Some days I feel gorgeous and I strut my stuff, so to speak. I wish I had more of those days. Others, I hate myself and pick at everything I see as an imperfection. I try to tell myself daily that I'm beautiful and nothing can change that, but sometimes I don't quite believe myself.

So I usually settle on the bad days with looking in the mirror and picking something I do like that day. The color of my eyes, the way my hair looks, the shape of my fingers - even that one little thing helps me ward off the negative.

I think we have 2 recognize that there is beauty in EVERYONE and everyone is beautiful to someone. There is beauty in our humanity in our flaws in our imperfections in our differences in our diversity.

Wow - I LOVE this thread - it's my favorite I've read on 3FC so far. All the different perspectives are great and I've loved all the poetry and the volcano breast story made me cry tears of joy.

I can only say that I currently have a co-worker (I'm changing jobs soon, so I won't see her every day for much longer) who is not the "right" weight, or age or anything by the medias standards. But to me, she's one of the most beautiful people I've ever known. And I'm not just talking inner beauty here - the outer beauty I see may be greatly influenced by her (amazing) inner beauty but I'm telling you now - this woman radiates. And I'll miss her sorely in a few weeks though we've vowed to stay in touch.

Thanks everyone for this post and for reminding me of the beauty in the world.